SyncA circular looping animation projection installation."(...) the film is based on the idea that there is an underlying unchanging synchronisation at the centre of everything; a sync that was decided at the very beginning of time. Everything follows from it, everything is ruled by it: all time, all physics, all life. And all animation." (Max Hattler)***

FURTHER INFORMATION
Sync premiered in 2010 as part of 'Time, What Makes Us Tick?', an exhibition by artists Max Hattler and Nelleke Koop and scientists Prof. Dr. Eric Bergshoeff and Prof. Dr. Martha Merrow, conceptualised by Nathalie Beekman, produced by Pavlov E-Lab as part of their 'Open Mind' series of sci-art collaborations, and supported by the Open Workshop department at The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark.

"Cinematic meeting of science and art:
This year Pavlov E-lab again presents Open Mind, a project in which art and science encounter one another in an adventurous way. This year's theme is TIME. You are carried off on a journey through various time scales in an exciting audiovisual installation. Chronobiologist Martha Merrow, a specialist in the field of the biological clock, and theoretical physician Eric Bergshoeff, specialized in the String Theory, are linked to cinematographer Nelleke Koop and animator Max Hattler." Noorderzon Festival, 2010

WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID ABOUT SYNC"Sync is modelled on a zoetrope ('wheel of life' in Greek), an optical device that produces the illusion of movement from a rapid circular succession of static images. The narrative and animation of the whole film are produced by one single image, a gigantic virtual disc spinning at 7400 degrees per second, which a virtual camera continuously zooms out of and which serves to encapsulate the central premise of the film, that there is an underlying unchanging synchronisation at the centre of everything, a sync that was decided at the beginning of everything, the Big Bang. The sound is derived from a continuous modulation of frequencies, corresponding to the progression of time scales that the image plane describes." Lumen Prize 2014 Catalogue

"A work of remarkable artistic importance and a high technical level." Special Mention, Prize Simona Gesmundo for Animated Short Films, 2011

"Animated film as a never-ending, animated mandala pattern rotating around its central axis. In 'Sync', originally devised as an installation piece, Max Hattler begins a quest to discover the unchanging origin of all things. He finds this in an endless spiral and circular motion." Fantoche Int'l Animation Film Festival 2011

"In this film, the rotation produced intentionally, continues to repeat in the dark background by the computer-based program. It shows the circulation of the universe and life. Also, it depicts the rotational motion in the social and economic cycle, and history. We can also see, the presence of the central axis and rotation of a planet. The centripetal force trying to move to the center and the centrifugal force trying to move away from the center. Born, grow, and disappear then reappear, disappear. It is a great video to act in perfect harmony of the visual elements." DOTMOV 2012, selected and commented by Hideki Inaba

"Max Hattler decided to portray‚ in a stunningly abstracted manner‚ the whole universe on ONE huge disk that is rotating at the same speed throughout ... Best watched in full screen with the lights off and your headphones on." Human Resources

"Reminiscent of John Whitney's famous animated mandalas, Max Hattler's work presents a hypnotic, ever-expanding and -contracting series of concentric circles." Sean Uyehara, San Francisco International Film Festival 2011

"Another recent creation is Sync, a 2010 collaboration with a physicist and a chronobiologist that visualises ideas about time and the universe, starting with the Big Bang. 'Physics was created at that moment [the Big Bang]. Time was created at that moment. To try and visualise that, I created this massive spinning disk, Sync, that we're zooming out of continually until the end of time.'" Design Week (6 Jan 2011)

"The underlying "sync" at the center of everything is a very interesting concept which can be found in the Tao (The Lo Shu square and the Dance of Yu), in the contraction of God as described by Kabbalist under the Term of TzimTzum of En Soph, or maybe also in the Ensō in Zen. It can also be found in an overtone and therfore in the holy Syllable Aum." Lifestyle Magick, Mar 2011

"Little did The Mamas and The Papas know when penning the words, 'To everything (turn, turn, turn). There is a season (turn, turn, turn)', that they very well could have been talking about Max Hattler's future piece of work Sync in which he sets his canvas to the celestial scale by representing the life of the universe, from big bang to present day, as a constantly evolving spinning disk.
Max's work often has a hypnotic quality, but Sync holds your attention tighter than Kaa from the Jungle Book ever could. As used to watching shorts on the small screen as I've become, I'm tempted to hire a projector, a massive screen and throw a party just to do Sync the justice it deserves." Directors Notes

"... not to be missed ... Sync is another exercise in periodic movement and relationships between circulating abstract geometric forms." Paul Prudence, dataisnature, 2011

Max Hattler x video_dumbo 2011 limited edition Sync t-shirt

"... the short in this set I feel most powerfully demands being seen on the big screen is Max Hattler's Sync, which was not in competition for an award at all. Hattler's had a piece in each of the past five SFIFF editions now, starting with Collision in 2007. Sync is much less overtly political than that piece, and in fact might be argued to be an example of animation completely free of representational attributes. But it's even more beautiful, and in fact hypnotizing in its constantly spiraling, expanding complexity." Hell On Frisco Bay, 2011